A Prelude to Nightfall
by penny.arcade
Summary: The frightening, fantastic, and unforgettable story of the second Swan girl.
1. Author's Note

Before you embark on what I hope will be a wonderfully fanatstical experience, let me say just one thing:

This will **not** be just another stupid Bella-has-a-sister fic. It will not be the exact same Twilight saga all over again. It will not be like re-reading the series and inserting some other girl's name where Bella's should be, and some other boy's name where Edward's should be (or maybe not... because some of these fics are actually going there). I hate fics like that. I will not let this become one. I promise.

That being said, it will seem a little like that in the beginning (well, not the whole just-making-the-sister-an-exact-replica-of-Bella thing... I mean the seeming-like-the-exact-same-plot-as-Twilight thing). It's unavoidable. The story still has to begin the same way, after all: with Bella (and her sister) arriving in Forks, and then discovering the Cullens. It won't stay like that, though - it wouldn't possible. Introducing a new person into the Twilight universe would completely change it. But the change is gradual at first... there has to be some patience. Just don't lose faith, okay?

_That_ being said, I have a request of you: review. I've only got a few chapters of this written, and I will only write more if they're wanted. I mean, _I_ love this new character I'm creating, and I love the story I'm writing, but who knows if anyone else will? My eventual goal is to write a four-part fic (one part for each book in the Twilight saga), but if you guys aren't into it, then what's the point? So tell me what you think.

Phew... glad that's out of the way... but it had to be done.

Hope you like my story.

xoxo, Penny.


	2. Chapter I

**Part One**

_Exodus_

* * *

I.

Down the Rabbit Hole. Throught the Looking Glass. Into the Wild.

Any Way You Put It, I'm Fucked.

* * *

I tried to ignore the plane rolling down the distant tarmac. I tried not to pay attention to the low growl of the engines, or the ominous trembling underfoot. I tried to pretend I was not _here_, was not about to do _this_. I tried... and I failed miserably. Jesus Christ, I could already feel the nausea building.

I, Katherine Edith Swan, _loathe_ flying, more then any other heinous, vile, repulsive thing on this planet. And I was about to be faced with five torturous hours of it. Wonderful.

I ran through the statistics once again in my head. You're more likely to get struck by lightening then go down in a fiery wreck spiraling madly out of control. You're more likely to get in a crash on the way to the airport then in the air. Air travel is the safest means of travel there is...

But all I could see was our plane colliding with another one at take off, our plane getting trapped in a thunderstorm over Washington, our plane plummeting down through the clouds from thirty-thousand feet into the harsh landscape below...

I tried to take one of those deep, steadying breaths they tell you about in anger management classes. It wasn't doing anything.

Instead of letting my thoughts linger on what I was sure would lead to my imminent demise, I stared pointedly at my mother's face, focusing - or, at least, trying to - intently on the words she was speaking.

"Are you sure you're okay with this girls?"

Renee's eyes were brimming with anxiety and uncertainty. Not to mention tears. I rolled my eyes. This was only, what, the umpteenth time she was trying to talk us out of our decision.

"You know you don't have to do this." She reminded us, again. "This isn't about Phil, is it? You know he's crazy about you girls, don't you? I don't want you to think he's trying to drive you away, or that I'm choosing him over you..." She bit her lip, looking back and forth between my sister and me.

That was just like Renee. Always overanalyzing everything.

Renee, my fearless, headstrong, free-spirited mother, had recently remarried. Within a few weeks of meeting Phil, she had sworn she was madly in love with him (not surprising for Renee - she has always had a bit of a flair for the extreme). What was surprising was that these feelings hadn't faded at the same breakneck speed at which they'd appeared. A year later, she was just as crazy about him as she had been when they'd met, and he was equally as devoted to her. They were married within the month. Which was fine. Phil was a very decent guy. He wasn't loud, obnoxious, or an alcoholic. He bathed regularly and cooked with above-average skill (an unexpected plus). And, as our mother had pointed out, he really did seem to like Bella and I, he didn't just tolerate us for the sake of our mother.

And he made Renee happy. That was the most important thing. So everything was fine. All systems go. There was nothing standing in the way of the four of is melding into a nice, Norman Rockwell style nuclear family. Which, of course, meant there had to be a catch. That catch was baseball. _Baseball_. A month ago, I would have never thought something so unoffending as America's favorite pastime could cause me so much misery. The problem was, Phil played baseball for a living. No, scratch that, the problem was he didn't play it _well_. Which meant he was unsigned. Which meant he went bouncing around from team to team, from state to state. From home to home. You can see how this particular lifestyle might be rather unappealing to two teenage girls. So, rather then cause our mother unnecessary pain by forcing her to stay in Phoenix with us, we were exiling ourselves to our father Charlie's dismal home of Forks, Washington so that she could travel with Phil instead.

"No." Bella said firmly from the front seat - this whole arrangement had been her idea. "Phil's great, really. But you two deserve some time to be newlyweds. You didn't even get a honeymoon. And I think Kit and I would both prefer to stay in one spot until we graduate... even if that spot is _Forks_." She said it like it was a dirty word.

I sighed. Poor Bella. I already knew that this was going to be a lot worse for her then it was for me. For one thing, I had never been too terribly close to Renee. I mean, I loved her, of course, she was my mother, but the two of us had never shared the same kind of bond that she and Bella did. And leaving Arizona would be no big deal for me - in actuality, I was looking forward to it. But Bella loved it here. She loved the bright, blinding sunshine, and dry southern air. She loved the city we lived in, and the gruff desert landscape surrounding it. Bella was custom made for Arizona, despite her obstinately pale skin. She was very strongly tied to it, almost as strongly as she was to our mother. It was going to be really painful for her to leave it behind.

It would not, however, be so for me. I had lived in Scottsdale nearly all of my life, had been raised here, gone to school here, made friends here. But for a reason I could never quite put my finger on, I'd always felt out of place in its harsh environment. I couldn't stand the staggering heat, the relentless sunshine, the saturated blue of the ever-cloudless sky that seemed to stretch to unnatural lengths over the flat, lonely landscape. Oddly enough, it was the climate in Washington that I seemed to agree with. Washington, the place I had left far behind before I was even born. There was something inexplicably appealing about the soft grey light that sifted through the constantly overcast sky, the persistent chill that permeated the skin even in summer, the unending string of wild storms, and the equally wild landscape. Brooding, thoughtful, mysterious, maybe even enchanted, but in the Grimm's Fairytales kind of way that always had you a little on-edge. It made Phoenix seem weak and superficial in comparison.

Yes, Washington I could certainly deal with. Forks, however... Forks is one of those impossibly tiny towns that rarely sees anything more shocking than a fender bender. The arrival of Bella and I would be the biggest thing to happen there since... well, since our mother ran off with us sixteen years ago. Renee and Charlie had both grown up there, just like their parents had before them, and their grandparents before them. They got caught up in one of those highschool first-love whirlwind romances, and my big-family-small-town minded father had convinced my mother to marry him and "settle down." But by the time Bella was born, Renee could already feel the claustrophobic walls of Forks closing in on her. It was the day she found out she was pregnant with me, she said, that she had had her epiphany: she was trapped. Like her mother and her grandmother and however many generations before her, she was being caged in on all sides by the inescapable iron bars of small-town life, and unless she acted fast, she would soon become one of _them. _She'd left that very night.

Thus, Bella and I had been raised in the suburb of Scottsdale, Arizona, and while Scottsdale was most definitely the epitome of the word suburb, I had always had Phoenix to escape to when I needed something of a little more substance (which was often). But Forks... Forks made Scottsdale look like excitement central. _Nothing_ ever happened there. It was literally a void of all things mentally stimulating. Two months of that place a year had nearly been enough to kill me. I didn't know what was going to happen now that we were making the move permanent.

"Oh." My mother said, her musical voice shattering my thoughts. "We better go. I don't want to risk you girls missing your flight.." She trailed off, as if that was exactly what she was hoping for.

I marched across the sweltering parking lot as quickly as possible, practically diving through the automatic doors into the air-conditioned oasis of the airport lobby. That could basically sum up my existence in Arizona: constantly scrambling from one air-conditioned location to the other.

The walk to the gate seemed to be going far too fast, despite the combined efforts of Bella, my mother, and I to drag it out, lingering as long as possible at every gaudy gift-shop window. And wasn't security supposed to take much longer then this? Where were the full-body searches and bomb sniffing dogs? But in what seemed like no time at all, we were sitting on hard plastic chairs amongst the other Seattle-bound travelers in a pained silence.

Renee, as always, was the first to break it.

"Kit, sweetheart, let me take a picture of the two of you."

I shuddered, but unzipped the bag on my lap and reached in for my camera anyway.

Photography is something of a hobby of mine. Well, no, not hobby really, hobby is too blase a word, but passion just seems too cheesy for everyday conversation. I'd always been fascinated by the camera. I guess I just liked the idea that you could freeze something in time and keep it forever. One of my first memories was of fooling around with Renee's old camera as a toddler, just pushing the little button at random. I was about six when she stared giving me disposables to play with, and I got my first real camera (a good old fashioned Polaroid) at eleven. I'd been thrilled, snapping shots of everybody and thing I came in contact with. I used up a small fortune in film.

It was the Polaroid I placed into Renee's eager hands, too lazy to dig the new professional camera I'd gotten for my sixteenth birthday out it's snug case at the bottom of my carry-on. She held it up to her face, and I dutifully wrapped my arm around my sister, leaning into her returning embrace. Renee snapped the photo, and almost instantly the Polaroid spit it out.

"Oh, this is a good one." She grinned, beckoning us forward. I cringed. As much as I loved taking pictures, I generally despised being on the other side of the lens. But I had to admit, as I leaned over Renee's shoulder to see the photo, she was right. It wasn't bad. I smiled as I examined the image of my sister and I. We had our arms around each other, and Bella was leaning her head to the right so it was resting on top of mine. Neither of us were smiling, we both looked completely miserable. But that wouldn't bother Renee. Renee liked pictures that captured the moment, not ones that falsely presented everything as peachy keen.

The goodbyes were kept short (or, at least, as short as possible when dealing with Renee). I took one final shot of her from down the long tube that connected the plane to the gate, and then carefully stowed my camera away. There was no need to document my torture. As soon as I sat down, I slid the plastic shutter down on my tiny window with more force then was necessary, and spent the remaining four hours with a pair of headphones firmly in place over my ears, the volume on my hand-me-down ipod turned up as high as possible without causing permanent damage to my hearing. I tried not to think of what I was doing, but I couldn't help squeezing Bella's wrists tightly every time the plane wobbled a little. My fingernails left little pink marks in her skin, but she didn't seem to mind.

My sigh of relief as the thickly forested ground began to rise up to meet us was a little too audible. I never thought I'd be so happy to see Washington. The ride to Forks from the airport was a little awkward, but uneventful. Charlie tried to make small talk, Bella and I tried to sound interested instead of dejected, and everybody failed miserably. The mood darkened considerably when Charlie sheepishly admitted that he had bought Bella a car - a car that was made sometime in the 1950's. Nobody spoke much after that.

"I got you something, too, Kit." Charlie said after a long while, as if he had just remembered.

"Really? What is it?" I tried to sound excited but was inwardly cringing. I wasn't really one for antiques.

"It's a surprise." He said, sounding proud of himself. "You'll have to wait till we get home."

I saw Bella's shoulders stiffen a little in the front seat, and knew she was thinking the same thing I was. _Home_ was in Arizona, with our mother.

But as we pulled off the road and into Charlie's gravel driveway, thinks took a turn for the better. Bella's "new" car, far from the ancient, rusted deathtrap I had been picturing in my mind, was actually, well... it was _cool._ It was a truck. A huge, rusty-red monster of a thing, the kind with a big bulbous cab and huge metal fenders that never need replacing. Perfect for Bella. It looked like something straight out of an old movie. And it meant that Bella and I would not have to walk in the rain to school every morning. Or worse, endure a ride in the cruiser...

We spent a good fifteen minutes admiring the truck. Charlie, thrilled that he had gotten something right, chattered on and on about how well everything ran, from the almost-new engine to the antique stereo. He had bought the car from somebody named Billy Black, and kept saying how well his son (I think his name was Jacob) had taken care of it. The names conjured up some vague memories from my childhood - long, torturous afternoons spent trapped on an ageing fishing boat with Charlie, Bella, and a three (or maybe it was two...) children who's names I'd already forgotten. Charlie insisted that Bella and I'd both been evry good friends with the nameless children (although, I suppose one of them must've been the Jacob character) when we were younger, but neither of us could remember much about them. I returned my attention to the truck.

By the time Charlie had gotten to the new lining in the bed, I began to wonder idly what my surprise was. Surely it couldn't be better than a car? As Bella climbed into the cab, feeling the leather seats and testing the space, I turned my eyes onto the house. It wasn't very big. Two stories. Blue, with white shutters that looked like they could do with a fresh coat of paint. The front lawn was small, but neatly kept. I smiled. It hadn't changed at all.

Or had it? There was something different about the place, something I couldn't quite put my finger on. It seemed... bigger then I remembered. But that wasn't possible. Houses don't just grow on a whim. Maybe it was just because that last time I was here, I had been considerably shorter. But that didn't make sense, that would mean the house should feel smaller, not larger...

Bella and I lugged the few suitcases and boxes we had out of Charlie's cruiser and into the house. We hadn't needed to bring much. We didn't need any furniture, as the room we shared upstairs had been well stocked with a bunk-bed, two dressers, and a desk, compliments of Charlie. We had brought to Forks clothing, books, movies, and music; the four staples of life. It would probably only take one trip to get it all upstairs, two at the most. Charlie seemed giddy as he followed us up, a suitcase in each hand, and I guessed that whatever my present was, it would be waiting for me up here. We reached the top landing, and again I was struck with the feeling that it was much bigger then I'd remembered it, only this time it was stronger. I turned to Charlie, and watched as a wide grin spread across his face.

"Come with me girls." He said, and edged passed us and down the hall. He strode past the room that Bella and I shared and stopped at a door that I didn't remember being there. I froze, comprehension dawning, and Charlie's grin spread wider as he threw open the door. I stepped inside, and gasped.

"Dad..." I breathed.

"Wow." Bella said.

"You like it?" Was Charlie's almost breathless reply.

Oh yeas. I certainly did.

It was a room. A bedroom. It had two large windows, each with a pair of simple white curtains that were heavy enough to keep out the light in the mornings, a daybed, complete with crisp white sheets and a heavy comforter, one of the dressers that had previously resided in what was now Bella's room, and a desk almost identical to the one he had bought for us a few years ago. There was nothing remotely remarkable about it. Well, except for the fact that Charlie had built it just for me.

Charlie had added a room onto the house, just for me.

I wheeled around to beam at him, nearly sending the large box in my arms to the floor.

"So... you still like purple then?" He asked sheepishly. He was referring to the walls, which had been painted a rich aubergine purple, my favorite color. I laughed.

"Dad!" I squealed, half reproachfully, half elated. "Oh course I like it! I love it! But you shouldn't have done it! Christ, this must've cost a fortune... a whole room! All to myself!"

"Actually, it barely cost me a thing." Charlie replied, his smile wider now then ever.

"What!?" Bella and I gasped in unison.

"How?" Bella sputtered.

"A friend of mine, a doctor at the local hospital, helped me with it. Well, he and his three boys. He offered to help build it and pay for all the materials. I did him a favor a while back, and he said he owed me one."

I whistled. "That must've been some favor."

"He was having a problem with some documents. Strictly legal stuff, but it could've ended up costing him a fortune in fees. I made it go away." Charlie swelled with pride. He was the chief of police here in Forks.

"So you asked him to build you a room? _And _pay for it?" Bella's tone sounded reproachful.

"No!" Charlie said in surprise. "I just asked him if he knew any good contractors. I remembered him mentioning that he had built his house himself. I didn't realize that he meant he had actually _built _it, I thought he had hired someone to do it from plans he had made. But he insisted on helping me himself. And he bought all the stuff before I could stop him." He added defensively. "I was surprised by how quickly they got it done, it only took them two weeks and I barely had to do anything. But apparently, Carlisle's father did work like this before he retired, that's where they all learned it from."

"Carlisle..." The old-fashioned name sounded strange in my mouth.

"Carlisle Cullen." Charlie said. "His kids go to the highschool, too. There's five of them, I think. You two should introduce yourselves."

"Yeah." I said. "I think we will."

* * *

**A/N** This chapter's mostly exposition, introducing you to Kit and whatnot. Sorry if it's at all boring, but it had to be done. I promise promise promise the next chapter shall hold some intrigue. Definitely some Cullen action.


	3. Chapter II

II.

Enigma - uh-**nig**-muh _n._ A person of puzzling or contradictory character.

* * *

It rained all night. I don't know why I was surprised. It's Washington. It's _Forks_. All it did here was precipitate.

Still, I wasn't expecting the driving rain that pounded the roof, sounding more like a torrent of stones rather then drops of water in the night's silence. Desert nights were quiet, peaceful, but this rain was like heavy artillery fire right outside my window. Could people actually _sleep_ through this?

I was starting to think maybe the clouds weren't so pretty after all.

I was not the only one lying awake. I heard the soft click of my brand-new doorknob turning, and didn't even have to sit up to know that it was Bella who padded softly into my room. Charlie could never move that quietly. She sat on the edge of the bed.

"You're still awake, too." It wasn't a question. Bella could always tell if I was asleep or not, she didn't even have to look.

"I don't know how anyone could sleep through this." I gestured angrily toward the ceiling, turning over to face her. Her long hair, almost black in the darkness, was pulled over one shoulder and she twisted it absentmindedly in her hands. A beam of moonlight that shone through a slit in the curtains cast half her face in an ethereal glow.

"Thinking about tomorrow?" I guessed. She nodded, lifting her legs onto the mattress, and I scooted over to make room.

"It's going to be awful." She cringed.

"It's going to be fine." I promised, although I wasn't entirely sure.

There are two things you can always count on when dealing with a small town. One is that it will be populated with all manner of gossips. The other is that there will rarely be anything good to gossip about. So when something as huge as oh, say, the daughters of the police chief and his flighty ex-wife finally returning home to Forks, happens, well... I tried not to think about it.

"Liar." She whispered in the darkness.

"I know." I muttered back. "At least... at least it'll only be a few days. They'll be all excited at first, and then they'll see that we're really not all that exciting, and they'll get bored. The novelty will wear off. They'll get sick of us."

"They'll get sick of us." She repeated. It sounded like a prayer for salvation, the way she said it.

"And then we can start counting down the days till graduation."

"Yours or mine?" I groaned into my pillowcase, and Bella chuckled darkly. "I've only got a year and a half to go in this hole. You're stuck here for almost three."

"It's not so bad here." Now. It wasn't so bad here _now_. But it would be torture without Bella. Mysterious landscapes and an interesting sky could only count for so much.

"Don't worry." she breathed, wrapping her arms around me the way she always used to when we were little and I was scared. I slid my arms around her, the way I always would when she was scared right along with me. "I bet by the time I graduate mom and Phil have settled down. Then you can go back home."

"Sure." I muttered softly. "I hope so."

"It's only a year and a half." She soothed, playing absentmindedly with a piece of my hair. "We'll survive."

I woke early the next morning, far earlier then was necessary. Bella was still asleep beside me, her face calm and peaceful, and I couldn't bring myself to disturb her. I climbed out of bed as quietly as I could manage and ambled downstairs to scrounge up some breakfast. Charlie, also still asleep, had tried his best to prepare the house for our arrival, so there was a small assortment of cereals in the pantry for us to eat. I poured myself a bowl and sat at the scrubbed wooden table, staring out the kitchen window and over the misty lawn into the dark woods beyond.

I was living in Forks.

I sat there for a moment, letting it sink in. I had been wondering when it was going to happen. The feeling had alluded me as our plane took off, and was still absent when we landed. Even when we had dragged our bags into Charlie's house and up the creaking stairs into out new rooms, it hadn't hit me. But now, after spending the night in an unfamiliar bed and facing the prospect of six tortures hours of classes with people I did not know and didn't care to, it had finally managed to sink in. I groaned audibly, and it seemed to me that the fog outside thickened in response.

I slumped back up the stairs. Bella must've gotten up while I was eating, because I could hear the sounds of boxes being rifled through as I passed her closed door. I shut the door to my own room behind me and turned to the two suitcases of clothes up against the far wall, trying to figure out what to wear. I was suddenly very grateful that Renee had insisted on taking Bella and I shopping before our departure to Forks. My Arizona wardrobe, full of dresses, t-shirts, skirts, and shorts in a myriad of insubstantial fabrics, would not last two minutes in Washington. I glanced out my window at the hard late-autumn sky and began rummaging through my clothes, searching for a sweater. I could only come up with one, in a rich shade of purple that very nearly matched my new walls. I slipped into it, along with the warmest-looking pair of pants I could find (a pair of brown corduroys, the skinny kind). After a moment of consideration, I shrugged into the dark grey hoodie Id been wearing the previous night before heading for the bathroom. The only bathroom. I sighed. Only two and a half years...

"Let's just go. We're going to have to check in at the office anyway." Bella reasoned about an hour later. Nerves had caused us both to finish with our morning routine ridiculously early, and we had spent the last thirty minutes gazing out the kitchen window at the ominous looking rain clouds in silence. And so we climbed into her "new" truck and set off rumbling down the highway in the direction Charlie had pointed us (and when I say rumbling, I _mean_ rumbling. The thing was like a jackhammer on wheels). The rain started only moments after we'd pulled out of the driveway, and by the time we made it to the school, it was coming down in sheets.

Forks High School was exactly what we had feared: a small collection of plain brick buildings that could not have housed any more than three hundred students, at the most. I sighed. I could guess easily enough what was waiting for me there. Boredom. Sameness. Safe, oblivious monotony. Balding, middle-aged teachers and cookie-cutter boys and girls. Nothing unique. Nothing quirky or weird or eccentric or odd. Nothing like me. Imminent insanity.

I was staring down my doom.

I pulled my camera out of my bag and took a quick shot of the tiny campus. This could be a postcard for Hell.

"Let's go." I said to Bella, grimacing.

The main office was no more then a small, brightly lit room, crammed with a few folding chairs and enough potted plants to supply a year's oxygen for a family of four. We rushed gratefully into it's inviting warmth, and our huffing and puffing (we had run at top speed through the icy sheet of rain) drew the attention of the secretary, a plump, kindly looking woman who gave us a curious look.

"Um..." Bella began. It had already been decided that she would act as designated spokesperson for both of us. "I'm Isabella Swan, and this is my sister Katherine. We jsut moved here from Arizona..." Bella trailed off, unsure if this woman had been warned of our arrival. We didn't have to worry for long: recognition flashed quickly across her face.

"Yes, yes of course, Chief Swan's girls, I should have known. Everybody's just buzzing about the two of you. I'm Mrs. Cope." She said brightly. I groaned inwardly. Of course Charlie had had to go and notify the whole town...

"A junior and a sophomore, yes?"

"That's right." Bella answered. I could practically feel the heat radiating off her face.

She handed us our schedules and a map of the campus and gave us each a paper for our teachers to sign, which we were to return to her at the end of the day.

Now you two have yourselves a nice first day at school, all right?" Mrs. Cope gushed as she sent us on our way. And then we were on our own.

We trudged back into the icy rain and stood on the sidewalk, glancing apprehensively at the surrounding buildings. This was the part I had really been dreading. Bella was a year older than I was, which meant that we wouldn't be having any classes together. I was going to have to suffer through this hell alone. Why God? Why me?

"We're going to be late." Bella mumbled, and I realized that we had been standing there for fifteen minutes, trying to put off the torture until the last possible moment.

"I've got history first." I said, glancing down at my schedule. "US I with Gregory."

"English." She replied. "At least that'll be easy."

"I guess so... See you later then." I sighed.

"Yup."

We stood there for a few more minutes until we absolutely had to leave. I watched Bella's retreating back, not bothering to suppress a smile as she stumbled over an exposed tree root. Bella was impossibly clumsy.

The history department, of course, was impossible to find. Well, no, not impossible. I'm sure it would be quite possible for the average sixteen year old. The average sixteen year old, however, did not have my horrible sense of direction. I tried to go in the direction the kindly secretary had pointed me, but as that effort began to appear more and more futile with every passing second, I started just ambling around in random directions, hoping to stumble across it. It was supposed to be in building seven, but building seven didn't seem to exist. Either that, or it was deliberately moving every time I got close. The minutes ticked by, and as the campus began to empty of students heading into class, I started to worry. That was just what I needed, to be late my first day. Why not draw a little more attention to myself? Everything looked the same here. Every building, every tree, every moss covered stone that blended in with the vividly green ground. How can anyone possibly find anything when everything is so... identical?! I began cursing the foliage, which I had once found pretty, for its green haze of leafy sameness. It wasn't getting me anywhere.

I was just beginning to get desperate when someone spoke behind me.

"You're lost." The rich velvet voice held no hint of a question in it's tone.

I spun around, startled by the noise. I hadn't heard anyone come up behind me, and was surprised to see him only a few short feet away. But my surprise at seeing him there was quickly wiped away by undiluted awe.

He was tall, lean, and without a doubt the most gorgeous creature I had ever seen in my entire life. He had bronze colored hair, the kind that always looks flawlessly unkempt, which draped effortlessly over his pale forehead... his incredibly pale forehead. So pale he might have been sick. His skin had a chalky pallor that made my porcelain complexion look positively tan, and there were soft purple shadows under his eyes, as if he hadn't slept in days. And his eyes... his eyes were black. I blinked hard, certain it must just be a trick of the light, but when I lifted my lids his eyes remained as dark as ever. It was unsettling. Those eyes were surveying me now with plain curiosity and... frustration? What an odd expression... it was like he was one piece away from solving a complicated puzzle, but that last piece just wouldn't fit. But that didn't make sense, why should he be frustrated with me? He didn't even know me.

I suddenly became aware that I had been staring at him for at least a full minute.

"Ermm... history..?" Was all I could manage. Great.

He nodded once, and the look I had imagined to be frustration was quickly replaced with something more akin to relief and self-assuredness. The corner of his mouth lifted ever so slightly into a crooked grin, and I felt my knees buckle. Jesus Christ, I thought that only happened in movies. How could any one person be so cripplingly beautiful?

"This way." He said simply, and began walking in the opposite direction. I say "walking" for lack of better word. There isn't a word, in the English language (or any other, for that matter) that could describe his graceful lope. I trotted hopelessly behind him, feeling like a stray mutt trailing after a kind human. He didn't look back at me once, but I thought I saw the corners of his mouth twitch up every now and then as he led me toward yet another squat brick building, identical to all the rest except for a large number 7 painted in a square on its side. It wasn't very far from the main office. In fact, you could actually see the building peeking out behind the trees. But this didn't surprise me. Like I said, my sense of direction is awful. I get lost everywhere, even once in a particularly large grocery store. I really can't be trusted to find anything on my own. I turned to explain this to the beautiful boy (feeling, as I did, one of my rare blushes creeping into my cheeks) and to thank him for saving me from bumbling around in the trees like an idiot for the rest of the day. But when I turned to face him, he was gone. I spun around, trying to figure out where'd he'd got to, but I didn't see him anywhere. It was like he'd vanished. But I hadn't heard him leave... Suppressing a shiver, I told myself firmly that I must've been gaping at the building longer then I'd realized, and I hadn't noticed him walk off (probably snickering at my blundering ways as he went.) Grumbling to myself, I reached out for the doorknob and went to face my fate.

The room was mercifully warm, though not as warm (or cheerful) as the office had been. I glanced at the clock, and said a silent prayer of thanks to whatever deity had been watching over me when I saw that I was only a few minutes late. A lanky, maybe mid-thirties aged man with a receding hairline was standing behind a desk at the head of the room, shuffling through a stack of papers while his students chatted easily with each other before the start of class. He looked up at the sound of the heavy metal door clicking shut behind me, and peered at me through a pair of wire-rimmed glasses before the flash of recognition I remembered from my meeting with the secretary lit his face.

"Ah." He said. "You must be Katherine Swan."

The classroom grew immediately silent. They were expecting me. Joy unbounded.

"Kit." I corrected automatically. I could already feel that this was going to be a very long, very uneventful hour. One which would be followed by many more.

"I'm Mr. Gregory, and this," he paused dramatically "is US one." He gestured grandly to the bleak little classroom, clearly oblivious to it's plain beige walls and battered, second-hand desks. "You can take a seat in the back." He added, nodding towards the only two empty desks, which were in the back row, and I flashed him a quick smile, grateful for the shortness of his introduction, as I went to sit in the one by the window.

Mr. Gregory mercifully spared me any further questions, starting in on his lecture about the state of America after the Revolution. I'd heard it before - we had already covered this in my old class, and I grinned smugly as I thought of the stack of binders and notebooks stacked neatly in the corner of my room at Charlie's, brought from Arizona for these exact circumstances. I tuned him out and directed my attention toward the closed window to my left, settling into wistful daydreams of classrooms with more then fifteen people in them. But it was only another ten minutes before I was pulled back into my far less stimulating reality by the rush of cold air that accompanied the opening of the door. I looked up, and saw a tall boy with tufty, bleached-blonde hair that stuck out in all directions standing at the head of the room. He was somewhat unconventionally dressed in cargo pants, combat boots, and a lavender colored t-shirt. And he looked perfectly at ease with the fact that he was now almost a half an hour late to class.

"Mr. Vandal." Mr Gregory had paused from his lecture and was now appraising Mr. Vandal with a disapproving look. "Nice to see you could make the time to join us this morning."

"A pleasure, Paul." The boy said, tipping an imaginary hat towards Mr. Gregory, who did not look amused.

"Sit down, Peter." He said in an exasperated tone. "And I want to see you back here after class."

"Sure thing." The boy said, and motioned for Mr. Gregory to continue his lesson.

I resumed staring vacantly out the window as the boy named Peter made his way to the last available seat, the one right next to mine. However, before I could properly sink back into my daydreams, the dark-haired boy in front of me twisted in his chair.

"Hey." He whispered quietly, and glancing up I realized that Mr. Gregory had turned his back to the class to write notes on the board. "So you're Katherine Swan, huh?" His voice held that cocky undertone of someone who clearly believes they're something special.

"Kit." I responded wearily.

He nodded absently, his eyes sweeping over me appreciatively. I sighed. I can't say I was entirely unused to male attention, but that didn't make it any less aggravating when someone ogled at me.

"I'm Scott." He said, raising his flat blue eyes to mine, one of which was partially obscured by the jet black bangs he'd meticulously arranged to fall diagonally across his forehead. I could tell automatically that he was considered somewhat of a heartthrob around here, and knew it.

"Great." I replied, hoping he would pick up on the disinterest in my voice. No such luck.

"Listen," he went on, leaning closer across my desk "since you don't know anyone around here, I wouldn't mind if you wanted to sit with me and my friends at lunch. We'll take care of you."

And he winked. He actually winked.

As I opened my mouth to tell him in no uncertain terms that I would be spending my lunch period as far away from him as physically possible, a low voice sounded somewhere to my right.

"Come of it Holland. If she wanted to know which products would keep her hair shiny and manageable all day, I'm sure she could ask her sister."

It was the blonde boy, Peter. He was leaning back casually in his chair, a slight smirk on his lips. The boy named Scott shot a few ineffective insults at him, but turned indignantly in his chair without waiting for my reply. 'Thanks.' I mouthed to Peter. He gave me the same cordial nod he'd given Mr. Gregory, but his eyes (a stormy blue) seemed genuine this time.

The rest of history class passed quickly, without any more generous offers from Scott Holland. There were others of course, always some overly friendly person who was brave enough to introduce his or herself to the enigmatic Swan girl. I really did try to be polite, to smile and make the obligatory small talk, but eventually I was just tuning out whatever they were saying. It was all the same anyway. English was a pleasant surprise - we were just starting a unit on Charles Dickens, a favorite of mine (although I preferred the darker _A Tale of Two Cities_ to _Oliver Twist_, the novel we'd be reading). Even my geometry class wasn't too excruciating. Our teacher, Ms. Folan, walked us through the complicated (well, complicated to me, anyway) formulas and theorems one at a time until even I could understand them. I was actually beginning to think life at Forks Highschool wouldn't be so terrible, if it was going to be this easy.

And then I got to chemistry. Science is, and has always been, my absolute worst subject. I had to get extra help from the teacher _and_ a tutor back home, and I still only managed to scrape by. And to make it worse, the Forks chemistry class was ahead of my class back home by about three chapters. I managed to turn my book to the right page, and then I was completely lost. I spent the entire class staring senselessly at the words in the book and on the board, my ears rejecting the explanations our teacher, Mr. Mercatio, was giving as thoroughly as if he had spoken them in Mandarin Chinese. By the time the bell had rung, my head was swimming. It was going to take a miracle to get me to pass.

"Um.. Kit?"

A small female voice had broken through the fog of complicated tables and equations and pulled me back to reality. I looked up to see a small girl, not much taller then me but substantially curvier, with tight, mousy colored curls and kind brown eyes smiling down at me.

"Hi." She continued, and I noticed that her soprano voice held a slight edge of nervousness. "I'm Bekah. I was in your history class..."

"Oh, yeah, sorry." I answered, trying in vain to pull up the faces from this morning. They all seemed to blend into one fleshy-colored mass, impossible to discern one from the other. To be honest, I'd mostly just tried to block it out.

"It's okay," and she smiled warmly at me. "If you don't remember, I mean. I know it's a lot to take in." She made a sweeping gesture at the tiny classroom, which was now almost empty. I laughed, and her smile widened. She seemed more genuine then the others, and I thought that I might be able to like her.

"Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that if you needed a place to sit at lunch, you're welcome to sit with me. It must suck, not knowing anyone."

"That'd be great, actually." I replied honestly. I had been worried about lunch. I wasn't sure if juniors and sophomores ate at the same time, and I didn't want to be standing around like an idiot, alone and at the mercy of Scott Holland. "When is lunch, anyway? I'm starving."

It was Bekah's turn to laugh. "Lunch is now. Didn't you notice how quickly people cleared out of here?" And it was true that the classroom was now totally empty. "Come on, let's go."

Bekah and I chatted on the way to lunch. I found her very easy to talk to; the conversation wasn't stiff or awkward like it usually is with people you don't know. She asked me a few questions about Phoenix, but not out of that standard obligational-new-girl-courtesy. She seemed genuinely interested.

"So what kind of food did you get in your old school? It had to be better then this." She winced dramatically as she gestured to the array of cafeteria food available for student consumption.

"Nah, it's all pretty much the same. I had actually hoped it might be better here."

"Nope." She chuckled. "It's always best to bring it." And she held up her own brown bag in demonstration.

"Thanks, I'll remember that."

I was just selecting an inoffensive-looking slice of pizza when I heard a familiar voice calling my name. I spun around and saw Bella standing a few yards away with a dark-haired girl I didn't recognize.

"That's your sister, right? Isabella?" Bekah asked.

"Yeah, that's Bella. Oh..." A thought had suddenly occurred to me. "She probably wants me to sit with her." I was a little disappointed. As much as I wanted to rush over to the comfort and sympathy of my sister, I was really starting to like Bekah. I didn't want to snub her. To my relief, she smiled reassuringly.

"Don't worry, I know the girl she's with. Her name's Jessica Stanley, she's friends with my sister Lauren. We can all sit together."

I smiled, relieved, and paid for my food.

"You know," Bekah said as we made our way over to Bella and Jessica. "You two really don't look that much alike, especially for sisters."

"I know." I chuckled. "It's all me, really, I don't look much like anyone in the family. Me and Bella actually had this theory that I was switched at birth for a while, until our dad showed us some old pictures of our grandmother when she was about our age. I look a lot like her."

And it was true. Bella and I looked almost nothing alike. She was taller, a little lanky even, with Renee's heart-shaped face and Charlie's inky brown hair, but long and straight like our mother's. I was significantly smaller than her, and slight - not very curvy at all. And then there was my hair - wildly, vividly red, the same vibrant shade as a sun-ripened strawberry - that tumbled all the way down to my waist in the mess of loose curls I'd inherited from Charlie. Bella and I shared only two physical traits: our light ivory skin tone (even paler then those of many of the people in this sunless town) and our eyes, different in shape (Bella's were more almond shaped, like Renee's, while mine were huge and round like Charlie's) but identical in their rich brown color. Both our eyes were the exact same shade, a rich chocolate brown.

But even there we were different. Bella had these impossibly honest eyes. Bella's eyes were mirrors, reflecting all her emotions, all her thoughts, and her fears... like a crystal clear lake - you could see straight through the surface to what was buried deep down. You could see everything about her there. It was something she hated - being so vulnerable, her eyes betraying her every time - but it was also one of the most compelling things about her.

My eyes were not like that. My eyes were something completely different. Renee would sometimes say that if Bella's eyes were a crystal clear lake, then mine were a storm-clouded sky: dark, mysterious, and utterly electrifying.

I was beyond relieved when we reached Bella. She introduced me to Jessica, a nice but energetic girl who gushed over everything, and we all sat down at a table towards the front of the room. I sat down next to Bella, the tips of my long hair brushing the seat as I did. Bekah, who sat across from me, whistled, impressed.

"I wish I could grow mine that long." She said enviously "But it would just be a nightmare."

I smiled my thanks and quickly asked her to introduce me to the rest of the table. There was her sister, Lauren, a tall, blonde girl who didn't say much to me, and Mike Newton, who smiled and made friendly conversation. There was also a quiet girl named Angela Webber, and a boy called Tyler something-or-other, I think it started with a C, who was just as gregarious as Jessica Stanley. A few of Bekah's friends from our grade came to join us as they got their food out of the lunch line. There was Josh, a nice, funny boy who was clearly the class clown, and identical twins Emily and Danielle, who looked like two perfect blonde porcelain dolls. Everyone seemed nice enough, if not exactly the company I would have normally chosen for myself, and it was definitely reassuring to know I wouldn't be spending my lunch periods alone in a corner.

Once the polite introductions were through with, everyone settled into conversations continued from previous classes, and I turned to Bella for a blow-by-blow of all the gory details of her first few hours at Forks High. But before I could open my mouth, I felt someone slide into the empty seat beside me. I turned... and saw Peter Vandal, the blonde haired boy from history class. I was startled, suddenly having him so close. His eyes were even bluer up close, and I noticed for the first time that they were flecked with gray.

I arched an eyebrow at him, regaining my composure, and he nodded at something over his right shoulder. I turned my head and saw Scott Holland standing a few tables away, glaring at Peter's back, apparently frozen in the act of walking this way.

"Thanks again." I said, turning back to my newfound savior. "That's twice today you've saved me from unspeakable horror."

"It was the least I could do." It was the first time he'd spoken directly to me.

I heard Bella chuckle at my other side, and turned to see her watching Scott, who had returned to his own table but was still glaring darkly at Peter. "What am I going to do with you?" She said, shaking her head in mock disapproval. It was Peter's turn to raise an eyebrow.

"This is my charming sister, Bella. Don't listen to anything she says." I told him.

Peter gave her his cordial nod. "Peter Vandal." He said, by way of introduction. "You guys are the girls from Arizona, right?" I nodded, at this point unsurprised that the locals seemed to know far more about us than was entirely necessary. "I feel your pain." he said earnestly. "My mom moved us out here from Seattle late last year. She said the crime rate was getting too high." He rolled his eyes dramatically. "How are you two adjusting to all the grandeur that is Forks?"

I chuckled darkly and looked over to Bella, expecting to see a grimace spread over her face, but she wasn't even looking at us anymore. Something on the opposite side of the room had caught her eye, and whatever it was, it had her entranced. I followed her awed gaze to the other side of the cafeteria, and immediately saw what had her so enraptured. There, sitting at the table farthest from ours in the large room, were a group of the most excruciatingly, breathtakingly beautiful people I had ever seen. There were five of them, all sitting together, all staring off in different directions, none of them speaking. I felt my mouth drop open a little bit, and some remote part of my brain realized how stupid that must look, but I couldn't recall how to close it again.

There were three boys and two girls. One of the girls was tiny, much smaller than me, with delicate, angular features and inky black hair that was cropped short about her perfect face. The other was just the opposite, long and elegant looking, with the kind of curves women pay thousands of dollars to recreate and a head of thick golden hair that waved gently down her back. The stunning blonde was sitting next to the biggest boy I'd ever seen outside of those body-builders you sometimes flick passed on television. His face was more mature, almost a man's face, and it was framed by a shock of the type of dark, curly hair you can only find in shampoo ads. The second boy, another blonde, was taller, not as bulky as the first but still clearly muscular. He had a classic face, a face male models would murder, thieve, and sell their souls for. This boy, possibly the most gorgeous yet, was staring determinedly at the table, and I thought his blindingly beautiful face seemed almost pained beneath his curtain of shaggy blonde hair.

I turned my eyes on the last boy, and recognized with a shock the brilliantly bronze hair. It was the boy who had helped me this morning, the one who disappeared...

"Who are they..?" I heard Bella breathe beside me. She had spoken quietly, almost too quietly for me to hear, and I was sitting right next to her. But at her words, the bronze-haired boy had glanced up quickly, turning his eyes in our direction before looking away again.

Jessica Stanley giggled. "That's Edward and Emmet Cullen, and Rosalie and Jasper Hale." She answered. "The one who left was Alice Cullen." She said, referring to the small girl, who, while we were staring, had trashed her tray of uneaten food and disappeared out the back door of the cafeteria. She had moved with the same incomprehensible grace as the mysterious boy had that morning. "They all live together with Dr. Cullen and his wife."

"Dr. Cullen.. Carlisle Cullen?" I suddenly remembered the conversation I'd had with Charlie the previous night, the one in which he'd told me about Dr. Carlisle Cullen and his five children. He hadn't mentioned that they all looked like Greek gods, though.

"You know the Cullens?" Peter and Jessica both spoke at the same time. Jessica's tone was both accusatory and awed. Peter just seemed curious. I decided to answer Peter.

"They helped our dad with some renovations." I explained. "Why, is that odd?" I added. They had both seemed a little shocked.

"Well..." Peter began, and it seemed as if he were struggling for words. "They're not very... social."

"I can see that..." I muttered, because the table were the five glorious Cullens sat alone could have easily fit twelve. And... there was something else. Their table was no farther from those surrounding it than ours was from the ones nearby, but there seemed to be something isolating them from everyone else in the room. Like an invisible barrier that everybody knew was there, unmentioned and uncrossable. And no one, I noticed, used the trash can placed just a few feet away from them, although it was one of only two in the room.

"Who's the boy with the reddish brown hair?" I asked, gazing across the cafeteria at that shock of bronze that managed to glisten even in the flat fluorescent light.

"That one's Edward." Jessica answered in soft, excited tones. "Why?"

"No reason." I said, almost too quickly. "It's just, I was lost this morning, he helped me find my class. But then he just walked away without telling me his name." I left out the part about him apparently vanishing into thin air.

"You _talked_ to him?" Jessica sounded so impressed that I decided not to mention that it was less like a conversation and more like me making a complete and utter ass out of myself. "I didn't think any of them associated with the common folk. Especially not Edward."

"They're all very... nice looking." Bella said. Her eyes were still glued to their flawless faces, completely oblivious to what the rest of us were saying.

"Yes!" Jessica agreed, giggling again. "They're all together, though. Emmet and Rosalie, and Jasper and Alice, I mean. And they _live_ together." She added, as if we had not gotten the point. She sounded scandalized. Peter rolled his eyes, but I had to admit, even in Phoenix, it would have turned heads. "Edward's single..." she mused, but then added suddenly "Don't waste your time, though. He doesn't date."

"Which ones are which?" I asked Peter as Jessica continued speaking in undertones. "None of them look alike."

"That's because they're all adopted. The two blondes are related though, twins I think, those are the Hales. They're Mrs. Cullen's niece and nephew or something like that."

"Oh. Wow, that's really nice of them, taking in all those kids like that."

"Yeah, Dr. Cullen's pretty cool. I met him when I broke my arm last summer."

"You broke your arm?" I asked, momentarily distracted.

"Yup."

"How?"

The corners of his mouth turned up in a devious grin. "Doing something valiant, daring, and extremely stupid."

"Like..." I expertly arched one eyebrow, forcing down a giggle as I did

"Skydiving." The grin widened.

"I'm sorry," I retorted, doing my best to drip sarcasm, but still working to stifle a smile, "you must've mistaken me for one of those cooing, gullible, half-wit girls who think that Martha Graham is a kind of cracker."

The devious edge to his grin dissolved and his face cracked into full blown smile. "Actually," he said, and I detected what was almost a hint of sheepishness in his voice. Almost. "I fell off the roof of my house."

"And what were you doing on the roof of your house?"

"Rescuing a duck." He said this as if he were announcing nothing more commonplace then today's weather.

"A duck?" I asked, caught off guard. What could he possibly have been doing with a duck on his roof?

"Duke. He's my mom's" he explained. "Normalcy isn't really her style. She rescued Duke from a restaurant in China Town two years ago. I think someone was about to have him for dinner. His real name is actually Duck Ellington, but that's a little bit of a mouthful."

"And how did Duke get on the roof?" I asked, not bothering to hide my laughter now. Peter didn't seem to mind.

"Duke can only fly up." He said simply.

I laughed harder.

"He's not very bright. He figured out how to fly up, he loves that, but I guess he's too scared to fly back down. Or maybe he's just too stupid to figure it out. Anyway, he's always getting himself stuck on top of the book case or the refrigerator or something, and then I have to get him down. He never made it as high as the roof before, though. I have to admit, I was impressed. That is, until the neighbor's dog got loose and started barking up at us, and the little duchebag got so scared he started squawking like crazy and beating his wings. He was about to roll right off the roof. I lunged for him, got him too, but..." He shook his head. "I landed in some bushes, so it wasn't so bad. And the little freak, I took him right down with me, and he was perfectly fine." He chuckled.

We went on talking like that for the rest of the lunch period, and for French after that, and for gym after that, and for study (which all sophomores shared) after that. And presently, I grew to forget about the beautiful Cullens. My thoughts did not linger on their fascinating mystique, or on their flawless perfection. I was too wrapped up in the excitement of the realization that I might have just made two real friends in the desolate town of Forks to pay them any more mind.

But as I trooped my way back toward the main office at the end of the day, my mind, free from the distraction of my new-found friends, found it's way back to the five glorious siblings, and to one in particular. Edward. The mysterious boy from that morning. The memory sent another involuntary shiver down my spine. But no, I was being ridiculous. Real people do not vanish into thin air. Real people _can't_ vanish into thin air. That kind of crap only happens in stories.


	4. Chapter III

III.

The Plot Thickens

or

The First in a Series of Very Interesting Encounters

* * *

As it turns out, vanishing was not the oddest thing Edward Cullen could do.

I caught up with Bella outside the office. She was looking down, concentrating deeply, her brow furrowed with consternation and indignance. There was only one thing that could put my sister in that kind of a mood.

"Gym?" I guessed. Bella is possibly the world's least coordinated human being. A solid hour of jumping, dribbling, dodging, shooting, and swinging was her own personal purgatory.

"That's not even all." She groaned, closing her eyes and squeezing her fingers to her temples, a sure sign of major stress levels when it comes to Bella. Needless to say, I was immediately concerned.

"What happened?"

"Later." She muttered, already reaching for the handle.

I kept my eyes firmly on Bella as she walked through the door, wondering what could possibly have brought on such a reaction in her. She had seemed fine at lunch, maybe a little uncomfortable, but that was just Bella. What had happened between then and now?

I didn't have to wait long for an answer.

The second we'd moved into the warm, cramped room, Bella stiffened, her wide brown eyes glaring at someone standing at the counter. I turned to see who it was. The boy's back was to us, but that didn't matter. I felt like I'd know that unusual bronze color anywhere. Edward Cullen.

"Please, Mrs. Cope?" His rich, golden voice sent an involuntary shiver down my spine. Now, as he implored the secretary, it was even softer, smoother, more enticing then it had been this morning. It was the kind of voice you read about in teen romance novels, the kind that can supposedly turn a girl's knees to Jell-O. I was beginning to understand the feeling.

"Isn't there some other section I could switch to? I'm sure there has to be an open slot somewhere? Sixth hour biology can't be the only option..."

Bella took a sharp breath beside me. I turned my head to face her, and immediately recoiled. The most fierce, violent expression of undiluted loathing covered her face, alighting her eyes with a pure rage that was tinged only by a drop of uncertainty, of hurt and rejection.

Jesus Christ, all the boy had wanted to do was switch out of sixth period biology.

As I was opening my mouth to ask what the _hell_ was wrong with her, the office door swung open, filling the room with a gust of icy air for the one second it took a lanky brunette girl to dart in and out. In that one second, Edward Cullen stiffened. He turned slowly, a careful, calculated movement, to face us, as if he already knew what he'd see when he turned around. I don't know what I was expecting to see in his face, maybe a look of recognition, or even a kind smile for the hopelessly lost girl from that morning. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn't this.

If I thought Bella's face had seemed furious, it was nothing compared to the way this boy looked when his eyes locked onto hers. His beautiful face, still breathtaking, was now contorted into a ferocious mask of agony and rage. I heard myself gasp softly. He was still perfect, still flawless, still beautiful in every way imaginable, but that beauty was horribly transfigured by whatever violent emotion lurked underneath. There are no words for the way he was looking at her... it was like.. like every last reserve of energy in his body was focused on her. You could practically feel the hatred glaring off him, and... something more. Whatever he was feeling, it was beyond hatred at this point. He looked like a monster.

Edward Cullen remained eerily still as he glared at my sister from across the tiny room. I tried to count the seconds as they passed, but my thoughts kept tripping up in my head. Bella had shrunk back against the wall, the fury in her eyes replaced with hurt and alarm. I glanced back and forth between the two of them, but I found it harder and harder to tear my eyes away from his inhuman face. After something akin to an eternity, using what seemed a great deal of strength and control, he tore his furious black eyes away from Bella's... and rested them on mine.

The change in them was astonishing.

They were no longer burning with rage and venom... they were grief-stricken, panicked, completely and utterly consumed with pain. I knew then that he was suffering. Why or from what, I couldn't tell you, but in that instant that he stood here, pleading with his eyes, I knew that something was terribly wrong with Edward Cullen. And, God help me, I wanted to help him.

He pulled himself back around to face the secretary, tearing his onyx eyes off mine as he did so, and his words were rushed as he thanked her for her help and fled - and I do not use that word lightly... fled is the only way to describe how he threw himself through that door - from the tiny room. I watched him go with an odd mixture of relief and concern. The second he was out the door, I exhaled loudly. I hadn't realized I'd been holding my breath.

When I looked back at Bella, I gasped for what must have been the umpteenth time that day. She was paler then I'd ever seen her, and she was shaking.

Any small grain of pity or empathy I might have involuntarily felt for Edward Cullen and his plight was extinguished in that instant, replaced by a vile loathing for any boy, any _person,_ who could do that to my sister. I reached for the door, an automatic gesture, to tear after him into the frostbitten parking lot; to snarl, scratch, kick, scream. Maybe Bella was the kind of person to avoid confrontation, but I sure as hell wasn't. I had never had a problem letting people know what I thought of them, and this wouldn't be the first time that words were not my only method of communication. Edward Cullen was not going to leave here today without knowing that if he ever so much as glanced in my sister's direction again, he would have someone to answer to.

Just as I was about to close my fingers around the handle, already prepared with at least seven different vile insults to hurl at Cullen the second I saw him, the door jerked open of its own accord. No, _jerked _is the wrong word - the thing practically swung off its hinges, Strange... it must have been some sort of weird cross-breeze. But I could have sworn I'd heard the door slam behind Edward...

"No." Bella's voice was faint but firm as she reached her arm out to touch my shoulder, simultaneously a restraint and a comfort. _She _was comforting _me_. Ha. She hadn't seemed to notice the self-opening door's magic act. It must have been just the wind.

"Just... just leave it."

"Bella..." I shot back, beginning to argue, but she just shook her head.

"No."

"_Bella_."

"Leave it alone Kit. I mean it. Please." She grabbed my arm now, already whisking me out the door, the slips of paper meant for the secretary forgotten. I snapped my head around, eyes searching for a fleeing figure, but Edward Cullen was already gone. How can he be so _fast_? Bella tightened her grip on my arm. "Come on. Let's go home." She seemed to have regained her composure now, but there was a slightly desperate edge to her voice. I slackened a little in her grasp - a surrender.

Bella exhaled softly in relief. She loosened her death grip on my upper arm, but did not release it all together. "You don't really want to end your first day at Forks High with a fist fight, do you? What would mom think?" The teasing was a little false, a little forced, but the small smile she flashed me was genuine, and that awful edge to her voice was starting to fade. I smiled back.

"She probably wouldn't be surprised." I noted, pulling myself out of Bella's grasp. She stiffened a little, ready to take off after me in case I suddenly bolted across the parking lot, but I didn't move away. "Besides, I don't think it'd really have been too big a deal. The Cullens don't seem to be too popular with the natives."

"No, they certainly don't... It's like they're -"

"Quarantined or something, I know." I finished Bella's thought for her. She didn't mind. Sometimes our brains just thought that way - together. "Like they've all got something nobody wants to catch. I'm not sure why," I said, chuckling darkly "I wouldn't mind catching whatever they've got... Honestly, how can five completely unrelated people all be so... stunning. I mean, it's not like they can claim it runs in the family, can they?"

"Well, not completely unrelated. The blondes are twins, remember."

I tsked in mild annoyance. "Still -"

"I know, I know, it seems impossible."

"Not right."

"Tell me about it. It's weird... you'd think they'd be the most popular kids in school, looking like that. You'd think everyone'd want to be their best friends, and all the while be secretly wishing them slow and painful death behind their backs. Isn't that the way highschool's supposed to work? "

I shrugged my shoulders with a quick, sardonic laugh. "Your guess is as good as mine, Bells. I sure as hell never understood it. But you're right... it's weird that they're so isolated. You _would_ think that people would just, I dunno, gravitate towards them or something... But you know, it doesn't seem to come completely from the other kids. Not like a full-on shunning-type scenario. It almost seems a little... self imposed, or something."

Bella let out a low, angry noise that almost sounded like a growl. "I don't know about that." She muttered. "If all the Cullens treat people like _Edward_" she spat his name "does, I'm not surprised that they don't have any friends."

Immediately I remembered Edward Cullen's furious face, his glaring eyes, his perfect features contorted with rage. From the look on Bella's face, I could tell that she was seeing the same thing. "What _was_ that, Bells? The way he looked, you'd think you killed his firstborn or something."

"I don't know." She hissed back. "All I did was _sit next to him_. I didn't even say anything!" We had reached the truck now, and Bella threw the driver's side door open in frustration, nearly taking one of the mirrors off the Toyota next to us in the process. We were both strapped in to the Chevy's soft leather seats, heat pouring into the cab, before she spoke again. "I had biology after lunch, and of course, the only open seat in the room was the one next to _him_." I decided to take 'him' to mean Edward. "All I did was sit down, and suddenly he's got this look on his face like... That boy Mike thought I stabbed him with a pencil. Apparently, he's not quite so hostile towards the rest of the world... just me."

We were both silent as she backed the truck out of the space and waited in line to get out of the parking lot and away from this god-awful institution. I knew it was time to drop the Edward thing.

Bella seemed to brighten the farther we got from school. By the time we were thundering down the highway towards Charlie's, she had started chatting again. Biology class did not come up.

"So who was that boy you were talking to during lunch?"

"Who, Peter?" I asked, playing innocent. As if there had been others. "Just someone from history class."

"Kit," She responded, the corners of her lips tugging up in a half teasing, half impressed smile "if I know you, it's never 'just someone.'"

"Shut up." I retorted, giving her a quick elbow in the ribs that caused her to swerve dangerously into the other lane. Even in a seated position, Bella was a hazard. "He's just a boy I met. He's... nice." Snippets and freeze frames from my afternoon conversations with Peter flitted through my mind. In truth, he was very nice. Smart, quirky, and with the same warped sense of humor I had. It felt good, knowing I had found someone like me in this hole. Really good.

"Nice?" I could practically hear the smirk in her voice.

"Yes, Bella, _nice_." I shot back, glaring at her as best I could with her eyes staring rigidly ahead at the road, refusing to meet my (hopefully withering) gaze. "Honestly, Bells, it's offensive how little you think of me. I am capable of being friends with a boy, you know."

She snorted in reply.

I refused to speak to her after that.

I felt good waking up the next morning.

The uncomfortable awkwardness of the first day was behind me. Sure, I was still the "new girl", but the idea wasn't so torturous now that I had actual friends in Forks. I was almost looking forward to getting to school. Ugh.

Becca beat me to school, already removing books form her locker as I swung mine open.

"Morning Becca."

"Hey Kit." She replied, digging through her bag. "Ready for round two?"

"Christ no. But I guess I have to be."

"Scott Holland was asking about you at breakfast." I could hear the smirk in her voice.

"Oh no!" I groaned, plunging my head in my locker as I looked for my copy of _Oliver Twist_. "That boy will not give up! You have to help me get rid of him, Bec! What did he say?"

"He asked if you had a boyfriend back in Phoenix. Like a long distance thing. I told him I didn't know..."

"Nope." I answered her unasked question, my head still plunged in my locker as I continued to search.

"Well then he wanted to know about you and Peter Vandal."

I froze, forgetting Dickens entirely. "And what did you tell him."

"I said there was nothing to tell. You guys are friends. But he seems to have it in his head - "

I waited for the rest of her sentence, but it didn't come. I emerged from the dark recesses of my locker to find her, eyes misty and wide, staring slightly open-mouthed at something somewhere behind me. I spun around just in time to see the back of a honey-blonde head turn the corner. When I turned back to Becca she seemed to be regaining her composure, blinking her eyes and breathing just a little too quickly.

"Sorry." She said, completely unabashed. "Jasper Hale just walked by. That boy does unnatural things to the female brain. All of them do."

I nodded in agreement, images of the eerily gorgeous Cullen siblings slinking unbidden back into my brain. And one in particular.

"Hey, what's with that Edward kid? Does he have something against out-of-towners, or is he just an asshole to everyone?"

Becca rose her eyebrows at me, clearly surprised by the direction the conversation had taken.

"Edward Cullen? I don't know, I've never actually spoken to him.." her voice sounded ever so slightly regretful. "I've never heard anyone complain about him, though. Why, what happened?"

"Nothing." I said, releasing the word on a long sigh. I liked Becca, but I knew Bella wouldn't want me to tell anyone about the previous day's events. "Apparently he was a bit of a jerk to my sister."

"Oh. No, like I said, I've never really heard anyone say anything bad about him. But he's not exactly a social butterfly, so really for all I know he could be the world's biggest prick."

"I think you could be right there.." I muttered, unable to restrain myself. Luckily, I caught sight of the clock on the opposite wall before she had a chance to ask anymore questions. "Holy shit, it's almost eight! I am going to be so late, I have to get all the way to building seven!"

"Run!" She shouted. I was one step ahead of her - literally. I sent up a series of silent hallelujahs that I did not inherit whatever sick, sadistic chromosome made my sister into a walking train wreck as I rocked down the hall, through the heavy steel double doors, and out into the relentless, freezing mist.

Of course, there was that awful sense of direction thing.

But is wasn't so bad this time. I had made it to building seven yesterday, could still see the way there in my mind. I remembered the trick Peter had told me as we were leaving for the day, the shortcut across the faculty parking lot, and swerved into a sharp left turn, trying to will my legs into running faster.

I should have been paying closer attention to where I was going.

I ran headlong into Jasper Hale.

* * *

Hey guys! Hope you're enjoying Prelude so far. For anyone who started reading this story when I forst posted it _months_ ago, I'm sorry about the wait. I haven't abandoned you (or Kit), I'm just a very bust gal. But I am plugging away at this thing.

I am also sorry that this chapter is a little filler-y. It had to be done. of course things are going to be a little slow until the big vampire reveal. But I promise that I'm setting up for something HUGE.

reviews make my day!

xoxo penny.


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